Cute, camp and draped in the rainbow hues of the pride flag, Lenny the LGBee should be the queen of Manchester’s buzzing gay community. Sadly, when I arrived for our playdate, this not-so-creepy crawly was locked within a cage of his own sexual and genderial repression.
Honestly, it would be honey if it wasn’t so tragic.
Lenny can be found in a quiet corner of Sackville Gardens in the seductive Gay Village, where the city’s effervescent gay, trans, non-binary, intersex, and furry folk congregate. There’s even a statue dedicated to renowned homosexual and self-confessed Big Thing tragic, Alan Turing – yas, queen, he who inspired the nearby Manchester Lamps.
To reach the Gardens, sashay your way down Canal Street, head past A Monument to Vimto, and take a left at the public toilet. During the day the park is a great place to play fris-bee with a blue-haired omnisexual with a fluro g-string and xi/xim pronouns – hi, Crispin! – but becomes a real hive of activity after dark.
Not that I’d know anything about that – teehee!
A statue as grand as Lenny should be honey to the bee for any Bigs fans. When myself, Bigella, Gordon and Gideon the Guacamole visited, however, we found him gazing longingly at his fellow gays from betwixt the bars of his steel cage of oppression, tears of ignominy cascading down his chubby little cheeks.
Insecurity and societal pressure had forced him to bow to the toxic whims of heteronomativity. But how did a would-bee gay icon find himself in such a perilous position?
There’s No Place Like Honeycomb
Lenny is a handsome, unique creature, but he’s just one of more than a hundred similar bees that spread their wings across Manchester as part of the 2018 Bee in the City Festival. Delightfully detailed one and all, none have captured the imagination quite like Lenny.
He was installed by some of the area’s brawnier transmen during a weekend-long working bee, and revealed to a curious public in a ceremony attended by prominent pollenticians, wrestler Sting and Land of the Bigs reader/astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Hard rock group The Bee Gees even sang their hit single, Stayin’ A-Hive.
“The LGBTQ+ Bee design is a symbol of LGBT Pride,” local chap Carl Austin-Behan bee-med. “The legacy and poignancy of Alan Turing’s life is mirrored in the eyes of this beautiful Bee. Street names and landmarks tell the story of the Bee’s new home at the heart of the Village. This sculpture inspires us to accept, embrace and celebrate life in all its glorious forms. The ultimate message is love is love.”
Bee’s here, bee’s queer, get used to it! But it would take someone with a special talent – not just for finding Big Things, but for helping semi-closeted insects negotiate the labyrinthine alleyways of the sexuality spectrum – to make Lenny believe that.
The Emancipation of Lenny the LGBee
With the cold metal wires of cishet indoctrination rising like a wall of self-flagellation between Lenny and his community, I looked the bee-hemoth in the eyes and presented him with a sad, knowing smile.
“Look, babe, you can’t stay inside that cage of philosophical constraint forever,” I cooed. “I hope that one day you can be as comfortable with your gender-bending sexual fluidity as I am with my rugged, unbridled heterosexuality.”
Bigella and Gordon chuckled. I assume they saw a funny-looking dog or something. Lenny simply stared at me through the steel bars.
“Lenny,” I continued, my words carrying more weight than ever, “repeat after me because it’s affirmation time. I am valid and deserving of love and acceptance for who I truly am. My gender and sexual identity is beautiful and unique. It deserves to bee respected. I have the right to express myself authentically. I am courageous for embracing my authenticity and continuing to grow into myself.”
Lenny mumbled the words at first, not quite bee-lieving them. Then as Bigella and Gordon and Gideon and a small collection of open-minded folk crowded around in support, his words became louder. Clearer. More robust. The real Lenny the LGBee was starting to reveal himself. And what emerged from that crysalis of emotional seclusion wasn’t just beautiful.
It was fabulous, darling.
By the time we left Sackville Gardens, with the ruby-red sun sinking below the adult shops and vegan cafes of Canal Street, Lenny had take his rightful place as the Queen Bee of Manchester. The Summer of Buzz, my friends, is upon us.
